Her Term About to End, Aquino 'Hasn't Made Much Difference' to the Poor

By DAVID E. SANGER,

Published: June 8, 1992

MARIKINA, the Philippines—
In a few weeks Corazon C. Aquino will leave the presidency of the Philippines much the way she came in: in a blaze of her signature yellow, amid international praise for restoration of democratic rule to this country. Here in the fetid slums surrounding Manila, however, Olivia Oracoy and her neighbors say they will be just as happy to see her go.

Mrs. Oracoy's 15-month-old son died of malnutrition and diarrhea last year, a frequent cause of death in her garbage-strewn neighborhood, less than two miles from a sparkling new strip of shopping centers and fast-food restaurants. The Government gives her two gallons of milk a week to keep her four children alive; a fifth has already been placed in an orphanage. On a good day her husband comes home with $3 earned at construction sites.

"I'm happy that there is democracy," the 27-year-old Mrs. Oracoy said the other day, balancing her children as they crawled up the wooden ladder of her one-room shack, made of boards from old crates and burlap bags. "But it hasn't made much difference to me. Cory said she would bring down the price of food, and she didn't." Reputation Suffers at Home

Six years after the "People Power" revolution, what people expected next -- release from the poverty, corruption, cronyism and disorganization that plagued the country through decades of dictatorship -- has yet to come to pass.

For some, without question, conditions are better than they were in 1986 when Ferdinand E. Marcos fled into Hawaiian exile. But Mrs. Aquino leaves office with her reputation in far better shape abroad than at home. Even her former supporters and Cabinet members say her indecisiveness and failure to engage the most pressing economic problems facing the country delayed, and maybe doomed, the economic revolution that was supposed to be the natural outgrowth of People Power.

Her presumed successor, Fidel V. Ramos, delicately describes Mrs. Aquino's administration, in which he served as Defense Minister, as "focused on transition to democracy." Now, he says, stability and economic reconstruction must be his chief priority. "The economy has fallen every time there are signs of instability in the country," he said recently."

By most estimates, about 65 percent of the population of nearly 70 million still live below the poverty line, only a slight improvement since Mr. Marcos was forced out in 1986. Economic growth, after a euphoric, post-1986 rise, started plummeting after a 1989 coup attempt that left more than 70 dead in several days of wild shooting in the central business district.

Unemployment last year was over 10 percent, higher than in the Marcos years. Inflation rose to over 17 percent. Polls show that a majority of Filipinos view themselves as worse off now than a year ago, though many economists argue with that point. Seven Coup Attempts

Mrs. Aquino's supporters, and there are still many, say it is unfair to blame her for the country's economic failures, chiefly because of the problems left by the Marcos regime, from inefficient protected industries to a crushing national debt. Distracted by seven coup attempts and struggling to establish democratic institutions, they insist, Mrs. Aquino barely had time to focus on economic reform.

Many here say the problems are made worse by the press, both at home and abroad, which they say portrays the Philippines as a country destined to disaster, from erupting volcanos to a restless military to rampant crime.

"One has to wonder whether the Philippine economy is really in as bad a shape as everyone says it is," Seiichi Kondo, a Japanese diplomat in Manila, wrote recently, adding that in recent months the economy has been showing signs of getting back on track. But the Japanese Cabinet had to agree the other day to reschedule $700 million in debt that Manila told Tokyo, its biggest benefactor, it could not pay back soon.

But over the last three years, as huge economic problems closed in on Mrs. Aquino, the woman who always presented herself as a reluctant leader often seemed to prove that she was. Many of those around her say Mrs. Aquino seemed more interested in establishing new institutions than in using them, in setting agendas rather than carrying them out. In a country whose politics call for constant glad-handing, she seemed to have little stomach for working with the legislature. 'Kept Changing Her Mind'

"Her reputation is somewhat sullied by two factors," Solita Collas Monsod, who served as Mrs. Aquino's economic planning secretary for three years before quitting in frustration, said of her former boss the other day. "The first is that people expected too much; they wanted heaven immediately. And the second was that she kept changing her mind about the most basic issues. She is prone to listen to the very last bit of advice she heard."

Mrs. Monsod argues that the problems facing the Philippines are the same as those afflicting Eastern Europe, basically a hard-to-fix, collapsing infrastructure. But the collapse was clear in 1986, and Mrs. Aquino's former aides say discussions about how to prevent disaster were regularly delayed or ignored. Anyone looking for an example need not walk any further than a light switch.

Though the Aquino administration knew for years, for instance, that the aging electric power generators were on the verge of failure, there was no concentrated effort to replace them. Now the city faces blackouts that last from 7 to 12 hours a day and have brought many businesses to a halt.

Only recently did Mrs. Aquino start talking about it publicly, saying the crisis is so severe that a crash program is needed. But power plants, a Japanese plant manager here said, "take years to build, and believe me, no one else will put money here until they are built."

But Mrs. Aquino's reputation seems at its lowest among the dilapidated plywood shacks huddled along sewage canals here in Marikina. If they voted at all, the residents of these slums voted largely for Miriam Defensor Santiago, a candidate who railed against corruption, government insensitivity to the poor and the feudal nature of Philippine politics.

"Miriam's the only candidate most of us have heard about," said Marisa Boy, as she held her 2 1/2-year-old baby, who weighs only 18 pounds. The Issue Is Food

To Mrs. Boy and many of her neighbors, the only real political issue here is food, or the lack of it. Government health workers says that last year about 5,500 children, or one in every six children they weighed, were moderately to seriously malnourished.

"We have milk to distribute, but not enough," said Dr. Belulah Reyes, the local municipal health officer. "But even now, politicians don't discuss how to solve this, other than saying we should end poverty."

One reason Mrs. Aquino failed to address the problem head on is that any discussion of poverty in the Philippines inevitably becomes a discussion about the country's raging overpopulation. The population grows by 2.5 percent every year. But Mrs. Aquino, a Roman Catholic with close ties to the church, has made little progress on the most politically sensitive economic issue, population control.

She made more progress on land redistribution. The Government set up a plan to buy the land of large landholders with land-bank bonds, and turn it over it to the poor. "Compared to Marcos, we performed beyond wildest expectations," Mrs. Monsad said. "But compared to our goals, we did poorly."

These days, however, seem to be among Mrs. Aquino's happiest. In the last few weeks, she has appeared relaxed on television and clearly delighted at the performance of her candidate, Mr. Ramos.

The other night she went on a television panel show for hours, one that discussed a range of issues facing the Philippines. Periodically, she offered a brief opinion and her signature smile. But mostly, she sat and listened, and let her aides do the talking.

Photo: "I'm happy that there is democracy," Olivia Oracoy, a mother of six, said of Corazon C. Aquino, "but it hasn't made much difference to me. Cory said she would bring down the price of food, and she didn't." She prepared to nurse her malnourished daughter, Jenelyn, in Marikina. (R. Rocamora for The New York Times)